Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 July 1

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July 1

Why? (WikiLove)

[1][2] Why is it? I hate it. --Reference Desker (talk) 01:22, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

According to this, you can disable it if you hate it so. Dismas|^(talk) 01:25, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I added to the title to make it meaningful. StuRat (talk) 01:38, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

It is being discussed here and here too.. Bus stop (talk) 01:40, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

It would be a smidgen more useful if the "create your own" feature actually worked. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:49, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I'm struggling to think of how this new feature isn't going to cause major drama sooner rather than later. I can already think of several ways that this, particularly the 'create your own' thing could easily be used for trolling and/or baiting people. Big AN/I thread about a person who goes around adding thousands of the things to the talkpages of random users is also pretty much inevitable, as far as I see it. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 11:19, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

The "create your own" won't be a problem so long as it continues not to work. They also overlooked the most obvious feature, suggested by the next section: A one-click "welcome" to new users. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:32, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I heard, from a man in a pub, that there is work on extending the user sign-up process such that it ends by yielding some more concrete suggestions to the user on what the user might do next, once signed up. So maybe the welcome business is not overlooked, but merely in the pipeline. Not sure where in this Gormenghast one goes to find out what's in the utility development pipeline. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:37, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

That man in the pub is probably as good a source as any. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:43, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I think it is a plus. No matter how much you can fault it in its particulars I don't think that you can say that a positive attitude is a bad thing. No other single thing to be clicked upon can compare in "positiveness" to the new "WikiLove" button. Even if its functionality were altered it would still be unique. What is the purpose of the "Random article" button? (I'm not suggesting getting rid of the Random article button, just trying to put the present question into a little bit of perspective.) Bus stop (talk) 13:10, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

At worst, it's harmless. Just a tab on the right side. If you hit it by mistake, you can X out of it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:19, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

There is some sort of user page creation wizard which I think was offered as part of some special signup. I know because it made the mistake of including default text that is submitted even if unmodified. So we have/had a lot of people who like snakes and know French. BB may remember more. Nil Einne (talk) 19:24, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

'Create your own' worked for me when I tested it in the user sandbox today. As for one-click welcoming - I'm not really sure how welcoming a bunch of quick, semi-automated stuff that requires little thought beyond clicking a button actually is to newbies... --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 19:37, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I wanna know what all I can do even after creating an account

Plz let me know what all I can do even after creating an account as I am new user and I don't know what to do? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kamal Dev Singh (talk • contribs) 12:18, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Duly welcomed on the user's talk page. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:22, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Free email

How can it be sustainable for companies like yahoo and google to offer free email services with unlimited storage space, and bring in revenue just from advertising? It seems comparable to me opening a restaurant and offering unlimited free food and making money just off corporate sponsors who I allow to advertise on the premises. All the food is free so we get lots of visitors, and that gives me power to demand greater fees from the corporate sponsors. If the analogy wears off because my restaurant is so localized, a chain restaurant could help. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 13:05, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Why do you think Google is gathering info on its users? It's a marketing gold mine waiting to happen (if they can get away with it). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:07, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, it is a lot cheaper to offer 5GB of space (or whatever they allow) then to give someone a free burger. Googlemeister (talk) 13:21, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Food is a lot more labor intensive than server space. Also, those ads are targeted. I never see any ads for diaper cleaning services or gerontological doctors because none of my mail concerns kids or old people. Those ads would be wasted on me and therefore I see only ads that may have some relevance to my real life. Dismas|^(talk) 13:35, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

To explain what Dismas is hinting at is what Google gets of value from you is information and it sells this information to others for a profit. It is a bit more complicated than a single-step transaction, but here is roughly how it works. Lets say advertisers will pay $500 per month for "untargeted ads" and $1000 per month for "targeted ads". They are willing to do this because targeting the ads at people who are more likely to buy the products from the ads represents a real increase in profit; you are more likely to buy something if it interests you; and that increase in odds of you buying something represents a real increase in the number of purchases when there are 100,000,000 of you. So what Google does is comb your emails for keywords, and then send you ads which match those keywords. So lets say you send an email to your buddy which says "I could really go for a cheeseburger right now". Suddenly, you're going to get bombarded with hundreds of ads from McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, Hardees, Jack-in-The-Box, Fuddruckers, etc. etc. Since Google already knows that you are likely to buy a cheeseburger (because you used the word cheeseburger in an email) it can charge the advertisers more for those ads, because they are more likely to get their message to consumers who are already primed to buy their product. This is the source of revenue for Google. They give you free email, and what you pay them is information from your inner soul. Faust wouldn't have had a better deal... --Jayron32 14:16, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that probably 99% of the users who have gmail accounts don't come CLOSE to using their 5GB of space. And space is cheap, anyway, when you buy it in bulk. Google has come up with quite brilliant ways over the years to keep their server costs down. The dominance they get by offering up nearly unlimited space (most of which won't be used) is worth quite a lot by itself, even without the information mining and the ads. As long as Google makes sure it can't be gamed (e.g. people using their server space to host videos or porn or whatever) then they make out like bandits.

The difference between your restaurant analogy and how Google works is that the amount of GB per users is very very very cheap. If a restaurant could give out burgers for pennies, they'd probably do that, and use the extra attention/users as a means for something more lucrative. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:05, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Commercial television has been using this model for decades. Free-to-air TV stations are mostly funded by advertising (except the likes of PBS and the BBC), and they seem to stay in business a lot longer than most restaurants. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:19, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

As an example of what Mr. 98 said about most users not using most of their space, I haven't thrown out an email in years, literally, and I'm only using 30% of the 7600MB that Google gives me. Dismas|^(talk) 15:46, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

You might like this small article. 86.150.155.115 (talk) 00:14, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Proving wills twice?

Not a request for legal advice here, just curiosity. I've been doing some family history research, and have found two instances where wills were proved shortly after the death of the testator, and then many years later, admitted to probate again. One will took 18 years between the two probates. Could anyone enlighten me as to why this might be? I've never been an executor of a will and so have no idea of what might cause this. English law, by the way.--TammyMoet (talk) 15:00, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Just a guess, but that time period to me implies some temporary arrangement while the deceased still had minor children, and a final settlement once they achieved the age of majority. StuRat (talk) 20:08, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer, but in the 18 year case, the youngest child of the testator (who got the probate grant) was 55! So I guess that rules that out. It was my first thought too. --TammyMoet (talk) 20:24, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Probate, of course, is notoriously _the_ most difficult area of the law (see Bleak House and the official rules), so anyone thinking of getting involved in it should seek professional advice, but what you're probably seeing is the initial grant of letters of representation (which is done in a local registry by a registrar), followed by the formal proof of the will in solemn form (which is done by a judge of the appropriate Chancery/Ecclesiastical court). This generally happens if the will is contested, but it may also be (as StuRat suggests) a requirement of a trust or similar arrangement created by the will. Tevildo (talk) 21:10, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Tevildo. I had noticed, in the 18 year instance, that the will had been proved first in one court (Lichfield) and then in another (Birmingham). Without getting a copy of the will (it's not my direct line so I don't want to spend a fiver on it unless I have to) it will be difficult to say exactly what went on, so I guess a trust is the most likely answer. --TammyMoet (talk) 07:46, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Missouri river flooding

Is the bridge over the Missouri river at Yankton SD open or closed? Googlemeister (talk) 18:45, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

It was open on the 10th when Nebraskans raided the South Dakota sand bag supply. [3] Looks like still open: [4] Rmhermen (talk) 19:30, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Yep traffic is going across on the webcam. Thanks for the help. Googlemeister (talk) 20:00, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

NJ articles

Would anybody be willing to help out on these pages: Sandtown, New Jersey, Mizpah, New Jersey, Richwood, New Jersey, Cedar Brook, New Jersey, Phalanx, New Jersey, Georgia, New Jersey, Siloam, New Jersey, Smithburg, New Jersey, Millhurst, New Jersey, New Brooklyn, New Jersey, Tansboro, New Jersey, Evesboro, New Jersey, Jacksonville, New Jersey, Jacobstown, New Jersey, and Blue Anchor, New Jersey. I do not know how to add the map pin-point thing in that info box to the right like on this page: Tennent, New Jersey. thanks. –Tinton5 (talk) 22:16, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Why not also post your request at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject New Jersey, its subpages and Wikipedia:GL/MAP ? —— Shakescene (talk) 00:10, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Okay I posted there too (The WikiProject NJ Page). I noticed that the editing traffic for that talk page is not too heavily populated and my comment may sit there without any feedback for a long time. So that is why I came here first. Tinton5 (talk) 00:25, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot the GL/Map one too. I'm posting there now. Thanks. Tinton5 (talk) 00:27, 2 July 2011 (UTC)